Future Of Mountain Valley Pipeline Again Uncertain
The saga surrounding an important natural gas pipeline continues. Last week, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) ordered the owner of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to undertake a series of safety inspections on the 300-mile project. The agency said segments of pipe that had been left exposed or buried underground for years during years of project delays due to litigation could pose a safety risk to the public.
As Bloomberg noted, the review could hold up the project even longer.
The PHMSA order came after several breakthroughs that should have allowed construction on the vital project to move forward.
In early August, a federal appeals court dismissed two lawsuits against the project, eliminating a significant legal barrier to its completion. In late July, the U.S. Supreme Court granted an emergency request from the company behind the $6.6 billion project. As Connecting the Dots reported, the Supreme Court needed to step in because two days before construction on the MVP was to resume after a nearly-year long delay, a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit halted construction on the important energy infrastructure project.
That appeals court order came despite the fact that Congress had approved, and President Joe Biden had signed, a bill this summer that mandated that construction on the project move forward. That legislation even had removed the Fourth Circuit’s jurisdiction over litigation surrounding the project.
After the Fourth Circuit Court’s ruling, the developer of the MVP immediately asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the matter and to vacate the lower court’s ruling. The Biden administration supported that request. “The application to vacate the court of appeals’ stays should be granted,” wrote U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar to the Supreme Court, arguing the law’s “unambiguous text” states that no court, including the Fourth Circuit, should have jurisdiction to review approvals pertaining to the pipeline.
Stay tuned to Connecting the Dots, which will continue to report on the fate of the MVP and other energy infrastructure projects like it.